Black metal tends towards a more abstract spirituality than most folks are used to. At its most devotional, the genre favors both theistic and non-theistic Satanism, various kinds of paganism, but largely serves as an affront to Abrahamic religions, using blasphemous lyricism and symbology like a weapon against the world’s most organized and destructive dogmas. Whether devotional, anti-devotional or simply agnostically going about its business, the nature of black metal, as experimental as it can be, is to turn blast beats, tremolo picked guitars, and often shrieking harsh vocals into an auditory experience that transcends the parts of the whole into walls of sound that carry some sort of exuberance, whichever direction a given artist may take it.
For Los Angeles’s Agriculture, that direction is ecstasy. Defining themselves as ecstatic black metal from their first EP, The Circle Chant (2022), Agriculture carried blackgaze and Cascadian black metal’s penchant for building post-rock-esque tension and crescendos over their self-titled full length and the following Living Is Easy EP. While those builds alone could qualify as something ecstatic, Agriculture’s latest album, The Spiritual Sound has chosen a more nuanced approach to the term. Instead of falling into the repetitive hallmarks of blackgaze, the quartet approaches their concept as an expression of Zen, ecstasy in the moment, be that moment mundane or profound. This is expressed lyrically as well as musically. Chief songwriters Dan Meyer and Leah Levinson approach the band with songs, and collectively, they deconstruct and rework those ideas, like the colored sand mandalas in Buddhist temples that are crafted with meticulously complex beauty only to be dumped moments after completion, allowing for some new beauty to take shape and reminding us that nothing in permanent.
This is immediately apparent on album opener “My Garden” that caterwauls between ferocious black metal and chugging nu-metal, eventually betraying the icy intensity with a sing-songy hook that interrupts the maelstrom, a move that would have been unthinkable in black metal a decade ago. Thusly, Agriculture‘s switch-ups demand attention, whip cracking listeners with such abandon that it is impossible to ignore. “Flea” then introduces spoken word lyrics over a driving punk beat and an outstanding black metal riff. The harsh shrieks return until you are hearing three distinct vocal patterns awash in the calamitous sea of sound. “Flea” not only has a great riff, but the guitar solo has restored my faith in soloing. It is emotive and moves the song forward into a post-punk passage that gives way to one of the finest black metal crescendos of the year.
“Flea” transitions into “Micah (5:15am) and you notice that the riffs echo the previous track. Again, Agriculture have made a song cycle, like they did on their debut full-length, tying a narrative concept into their music. “The Weight” introduces a doom-laden character that could fit on a Primitive Man album, slow and noisy. Fret not, despite all of the diversity of sound on display here, The Spiritual Sound is still decidedly a black metal album, and these detours are the tension builders for cathartic, ecstatic release. The title track is more of an interlude of noise that transitions into the dream pop of “Dan’s Love Song”, waves of shoegaze guitars and a clean sung melody that feels like an ocean breeze on a midnight beach. These five minutes of calm juxtapose lead single “Boddhidharma”‘s alt-metal indulgences that ultimately give way to a microcosm of this three-track run, splicing harsh noise, subtle beauty, and another ripping guitar solo and a fierce, deeply satisfying conclusion.
All of this makes the latter half of the album more experimental and introspective than the first half as the album’s characters face their conflicts in more personal ways. “Hallelujah” is an acoustic ballad that ends with more blast beats and guitar heroics. Closing track, “The Reply”, musters another grand and emotional conclusion that lands as one of the most beautiful moments in metal I’ve heard in a long time as the narrator, oceanside reflects on the needless and senseless destruction of peaceful moments in history, and the band carries out a blackened coda to the album that mirrors Explosions In The Sky‘s grander moments.
Agriculture should rightfully ascend to new leaders of the blackgaze/post-black metal movement. The Spiritual Sound distills the work of trve cvlt black metal pioneers with Deafheaven‘s thrilling highs and Panopticon‘s mastery of imbuing other sub-genres into black metal. In this, Agriculture have also made one of the best black metal albums of the year and have completely smashed through the possibility of a sophomore slump by expanding on their previous work with a refined grace and precision, marrying disparate sonic qualities into an expression of impermanence manifest without sounding haphazard or gimmicky. This is metal as high art.
